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Is it just me, or is history slowly being rewritten with all these recent newspaper articles? This one from the Times again peddles the half-truth, perpetuated with Green’s connivance, that post-Provison, he had to disappear for 10 years to recuperate. Hang on a second….what’s happened to the two singles and the BEF album in 1991? He was happy enough to appear in videos for these despite his supposed disillusionment with the industry. Also, it seems that Anomie and Bonhomie is slowly being written out of the grand narrative as a commercial and critical failure….woah there. I remember that 95% of the reviews for A&B were stellar– and it reached the Top 40, while WBBB, while undeniably a critical success, has yet to trouble the top 100! In case this sounds like a rant, it’s not, and I’m aware that the above facts are less attractive than the “return to glory days” story arc that the newspapers are currently peddling. However, as well as being a big fan of SP, I’m also a fan of the truth, even if it doesn’t quite fit the story you want to tell. OK, normal service can now be resumed…

Richard W08.10.06 / 12am

No, it’s not just you Andrew. Having said that, when he came back from Wales in ’91 to do some press, he was talking about darts and country walks and saying that the business of being a pop star had made him ill. He only came back then because Martyn Ware wanted him to do the BEF thing and cut the ragga singles in studio down-time. And to my knowledge he did absolutely no TV to promote those three singles (I remember waiting in vain for ‘She’s A Woman’ on TOTP as it climbed the charts), just a bit of radio and the music weeklies. So I think it was a half-hearted return to the fold, even though a couple of great singles came out of that.

You’re right – ‘Anomie and Bonhomie’ got great reviews in the UK and sold better for a couple of weeks. But WBBB, even though the sales have been ‘slow’ to put it politely, will outsell it in the end because of playing live and the award and Green making more effort to promote it.

Thanks for confirming that Richard! It was all going a bit Patrick McGoohan for a moment there; I had visions of being taken away by men in white coats from the NME, reassuring me that “no, Scritti Politti did not release any product between 1988 and 2006. You must have dreamt it all…”

I think you’re right, too, that WBBB seems to be sticking around a lot longer than A&B, and is even gaining momentum. How very old-fashioned in a market that seems predicated on creating as big a splash as possible in the first week of sales, then quickly dying a death. Hooray for Geoff Travis!